:: wikimiki.org ::

Sothis

Sothis

Sothis is the Greek name of a star that the Egyptians considered unusually significant. The star is not explicitely identified, but there are enough clues for modern scholars to be almost unanimous in identifying Sothis as Sirius.
- Plutarch states that The soul of Isis is called Dog by the Greeks
- Sothis was identified with Isis in many Egyptian texts
- The Greeks called Sirius the dog
- Sirius is the brightest star visible in the sky
- The first appearance of Sirius in the sky each year occurs just before the annual nile flooding
- The Greeks called the Sirius period the Dog Days and associated them with the hottest days of summers as well as diseases 'caused' by this heat. The Egyptians also associated the Sothic period (of Sirius) with epidemics

Sothic Mythos

Prof Karl Kerenyi claims an ancient mythic figure Iachen (or Iachim) represents a sublimated form of Sirius or Sothis. Sirius rose with the nile flood and was also associated with epidemics, Sothis was thus a destructive and greatly feared goddess (perhaps akin to Sekhmet, or an Egyptian equivalent of Kali). Iachen was said to be an Egyptian magician who 'tamed' the power of Sirius and transformed it into a life giving power (just as the flood fertilised the land of Egypt with fresh nile mud). When he died he became the centre of a cult which kept a flame burning on his altar. When Sirius rose the priests of Iachen entered the streets with torches lit from the altar, in order to channel the power of Sirius and heal any diseases unleashed by it. Iachen was known in Minoan Crete as I-wa-ko, who became the Greek torch bearing son of Persephone - Iakchos, who was also associated with Sirius, as ‘the light bearing star of the nocturnal mysteries’ according to Kerenyi. The late Isis took on the role of many more ancient deities, including Neith, Hathor and the lion headed Sekhmet. The connection between Sirius and a dog may reflect the stars association with the destructive power of the goddess, universally symbolised by various predators of feline or canine origin (lions, tigers, panthers, wolves and hunting dogs in particular). In Greek culture this became the she-dog of Orion, the sublimated form perhaps. Gods who ride such animals, notably Shiva and Dionysos, or who have canine servants, notably Orion and Osiris (with Anubis his gatekeeper and embalmer), were also regarded by Kerenyi as partly derived from Iachen, the sublimator, or an even older myth. Dogs associated with various incarnations of Dionysos, as well as with Orion's dog (Sirius), were regarded as the discoverers, or bearers, of the first grapevine, this was probably because Sirius rose in the period of the vines blossoming, shortly before harvest. It also reached its highest point in the sky on around Jan 1st, just before the birth of Dionysos on Jan 6th (epiphany), associated with the opening of the first wine. The universality of Sirius lore, even the Pawnee tribe of North America, and others, refered to Sirius as the 'Wolf Star', indicates this Sothic Mythos may have extremely ancient roots, perhaps as old as the first humans to migrate from Asia.

References

- Kerenyi, Karl, Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life 1976.

Sirius

Sirius (α CMa / α Canis Majoris / Alpha Canis Majoris) is the brightest star in the nighttime sky, with a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46. It is located in the constellation Canis Major. Its name comes from the Latin sīrius, from Greek σείριος (seirios, "glowing" or "scorcher"). As the major star of the "Big Dog" constellation, it is often called the "Dog Star". Sirius can be seen from every inhabited region of the Earth's surface and, in the Northern Hemisphere, is known as a vertex of the Winter Triangle. At a distance of 2.6 pc or 8.57 light years (50.3 trillion miles), Sirius is also one of the nearest stars to Earth. The best time of year to view it is around January 1, when it reaches the meridian at midnight. It is a main sequence star of spectral type A0 or A1 and has a mass about 2.4 times that of the Sun. It is also known by the Latin name Canicula ("little dog") and as الشعرى aš-ši’rā in Arabic astronomy, from which the alternate name Aschere derives. Its closest large neighbour star is Procyon, 1.61 pc or 5.24 ly away. In 1909, Ejnar Hertzsprung suggested that Sirius was part of the Ursa Major Moving Group; however, more recent research by Jeremy King et al. at Clemson University in 2003 questions whether that is true, since the two components of Sirius appear to be too young.

Binary system

In 1844 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel deduced that Sirius was actually a binary star. In 1862 Alvan Graham Clark discovered the companion, which is called Sirius B, or affectionately "the Pup". The visible star is now sometimes known as Sirius A. The two stars orbit each other with a separation of about 20 AU and a period of close to 50 years. In 1915 astronomers at the Mount Wilson Observatory determined that Sirius B was a white dwarf, the first to be discovered. Interestingly, this means that Sirius B must have originally been by far the more massive of the two, since it has already evolved off the main sequence. Robert Hanbury Brown measured the diameter of Sirius for the first time in 1956.

History

Historically, many cultures have attached special significance to Sirius. Sirius was worshipped as Sothis in the valley of the Nile long before Rome was founded, and many ancient Egyptian temples were oriented so that light from the star could penetrate to their inner altars. The Egyptians based their calendar on the heliacal rising of Sirius, which occurred just before the annual flooding of the Nile and the Summer solstice. In Greek mythology, Orion's dog became Sirius. The Greeks also associated Sirius with the heat of summer: they called it Σείριος Seirios, often translated "the scorcher." This also explains the phrase "dog days of summer". In the astrology of the Middle Ages, Sirius was a Behenian fixed star, associated with beryl and juniper. Its kabbalistic symbol Image:Agrippa1531_Canismaior.png was listed by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.

Mysteries

There are a few unsolved mysteries regarding Sirius.
- Firstly, apparent orbital irregularities in Sirius B have been observed since 1894, suggesting a third very small companion star, but this has never been definitely confirmed.
- Second, ancient observations of Sirius describe it as a red star, when today Sirius A is bluish white. The possibility that stellar evolution of either Sirius A or Sirius B could be responsible for this discrepancy is rejected by astronomers on the grounds that the timescale of thousands of years is too short and that there is no sign of the nebulosity in the system that would be expected had such a change taken place. Alternative explanations are either that the description as red is a poetic metaphor for ill fortune, or that the dramatic scintillations of the star when it was observed rising left the viewer with the impression that it was red.

The Dogons

It has been suggested that the Dogon tribe of Mali knew about unseen companion star(s) before they were discovered in the 19th century. This is a source of speculation for UFO enthusiasts and was the subject of the book The Sirius Mystery by Robert Temple. This work has been debunked by astronomer Carl Sagan, among others, as based on confabulation and selective evidence. Careful research reveals there was probably cultural contamination on the part of visiting astronomers who went to the region to observe a transit of Venus.

Sirius in Fiction

- In the Known Space series of stories by Larry Niven a high gravity world called "Jinx" is the moon of a gas giant in the Sirius system.
- In the fantasy novel "Dogsbody" by Diana Wynne Jones the star Sirius is an intelligent being falsely accused of murdering another star by his peers. As punishment he is sent to Earth in the body of a new born puppy to find the weapon he supposedly used.
- Sirius is also known as the planet/star/vortex/whatever Mental is supposedly on in the Serious Sam games.
- In the Harry Potter book series, the character Sirius Black, who can change shape into a large black dog, takes his name from the star.
- Sirius is the home star system of the "visitors" in the tv series "V"
- Sirius is part subject matter of the volume Cosmic Trigger I by Robert Anton Wilson
- Sirius is mentioned in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, en passant
- The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation
- Tom Robbins' 1994 novel, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas deals greatly with various Dogon/Sirius mysteries as well as much of the general mythology surrounding the star.
- There is also a metal & plastic yo-yo named after the Sirius star. It's manufactured by a company called [http://www.yoyojam.com/ YoYoJam] and is the signature model of Nathan Crissey

References and external links

- Benest, D., & Duvent, J. L. (1995, July). [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1995A%26A...299..621B&db_key=AST&high=40dcacf76b29443 Is Sirius a triple star?] Astronomy and Astrophysics, 299, 621-628. (available at [http://adswww.harvard.edu/ The NASA Astrophysics Data System])
- Ridpath, Ian (1978) [http://www.csicop.org/si/7809/sirius.html Investigating the "Sirius Mystery"]. The Skeptical Inquirer. Retrieved July 11, 2005.
- [http://www.solstation.com/stars/sirius2.htm Detailed information on Sirius]
- [http://www.sankey.ws/siriustime.html Getting Sirius about time] Canis Majoris, Alpha Category:Binary stars Category:Canis Major constellation 48915 Category:Mythological dogs Category:White dwarfs Category:White main sequence stars ja:シリウス

Plutarch

Mestrius Plutarchus (ca. 46- 127) was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist. Born in the small town of Chaeronea, in the Greek region known as Boeotia, probably during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius, Plutarch travelled widely in the Mediterranean world, including twice to Rome. Due to his parents' wealth, after 67, Plutarchus was able to study philosophy, rhetoric, and mathematics at the Academy of Athens. He had a number of influential friends, including Soscius Senecio and Fundanus, both important Senators, to whom some of his later writings were dedicated. He lived most of his life at Chaeronea, and was initiated into the mysteries of the Greek god Apollo. However, his duties as the senior of the two priests of Apollo at the Oracle of Delphi (where he was responsible for interpreting the auguries of the Pythia or priestess/oracle) apparently occupied little of his time - he led an active social and civic life and produced an incredible body of writing, much of which is still extant.

Work as magistrate and ambassador

In addition to his duties as a priest of the Delphic temple, Plutarch was also a magistrate in Chaeronea and he represented his home on various missions to foreign countries during his early adult years. His friend Lucius Mestrius Florus, a Roman consul, sponsored Plutarch as a Roman citizen and, according to the 10th century historian George Syncellus, late in life, the Emperor Hadrian appointed him procurator of Achaea - a position that entitled him to wear the vestments and ornaments of a consul himself. (The Suda, a medieval Greek encyclopedia, states that Hadrian's predecessor Trajan made Plutarch procurator of Illyria, but most historians consider that unlikely, since Illyria was not a procuratorial province, and Plutarch probably did not speak Illyrian).

Parallel Lives

His best-known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged as dyads to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving Lives contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair containing one Greek Life and one Roman Life, as well as four unpaired single Lives. As he explains in the first paragraph of his Life of Alexander, Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of character — good or bad — on the lives and destinies of famous men. Some of the more interesting Lives — for instance, those of Heracles and Philip II of Macedon — no longer exist, and many of the remaining Lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae, or have been tampered with by later writers.

Life of Alexander

His Life of Alexander is one of the five surviving tertiary sources about the Macedonian conqueror and it includes anecdotes and descriptions of incidents that appear in no other source. Likewise, his portrait of Numa Pompilius, an early Roman king, also contains unique information about the early Roman calendar.

Other works

The Moralia

The remainder of his surviving work is collected under the title of the Moralia (loosely translated as Customs and Mores). It is an eclectic collection of seventy-eight essays and transcribed speeches, which includes On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great - an important adjunct to his Life of the great general, On the Worship of Isis and Osiris (a crucial source of information on Egyptian religious rites), and On the Malice of Herodotus (which may, like the orations on Alexander's accomplishments, have been a rhetorical exercise), wherein Plutarch criticizes what he sees as systematic bias in the Herodotus's work, along with more philosophical treatises, such as On the Decline of the Oracles, On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance, On Peace of Mind and lighter fare, such as Odysseus and Gryllus, a humorous dialogue between Homer's Ulysses and one of Circe's enchanted pigs. The Moralia was composed first, while writing the Lives occupied much of the last two decades of Plutarch's own life. Some editions of the Moralia include several works now known to be pseudepigrapha: among these are the Lives of the Ten Orators (biographies of the Ten Orators of ancient Athens, based on Caecilius of Calacte), The Doctrines of the Philosophers, and On Music. One "pseudo-Plutarch" is held responsible for all of these works, though their authorship is of course unknown. Though the thoughts and opinions recorded are not Plutarch's and come from a slightly later era, they are all classical in origin and have value to the historian.

Quaestiones

A pair of interesting minor works is the Questions, one on obscure details of Roman habits and cult, one on Greek ones.

Plutarch's influence

Plutarch's writings had enormous influence on English and French literature. In his plays, Shakespeare paraphrased parts of Thomas North's translation of selected Lives, and occasionally quoted from them verbatim. Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists were greatly influenced by the Moralia (Emerson wrote a glowing introduction to the five volume 19th century edition of his Moralia). Boswell quoted Plutarch's line about writing lives, rather than biographies in the introduction to his own Life of Samuel Johnson. His other admirers include Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Alexander Hamilton, John Milton, and Sir Francis Bacon, as well as such disparate figures as Cotton Mather, Robert Browning and Montaigne (whose own Essays draw deeply on Plutarch's Moralia for their inspiration and ideas).

Quotes

"Wickedness frames the engines of her own torment. She is a wonderful artisan of a miserable life." "It is a desirable thing to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors." "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." "But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy."

External links

-
- A [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/0/3/14033/14033-h/14033-h.htm#LIFE_OF_PLUTARCH biography of Plutarch] is included in: , 18th century English translation under the editorship of Dryden (further edited by Arthur Hugh Clough).
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/home.html Plutarch page at LacusCurtius] (20th century English translation of most of the Lives, On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander, On the Fortune of the Romans, Roman Questions, and other excerpts of the Moralia)
- [http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/plutarch/plutarch.htm Plutarch of Chaeronea] by Jona Lendering at Livius.Org
- [http://www.usu.edu/history/ploutarchos/index.htm The International Plutarch Society]

References

- Plutarch's "Lives" by Alan Wardman ISBN 0236176226
- Plutarch's "Lives: exploring virtue and vice" by Timothy E. Duff (Oxford UP: 2002 pb) ISBN 0199252742.
- "The Echo of Greece" by Edith Hamilton. The Norton Library, W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 1957. p. 194. ISBN 0393002314. (Quote) Category:45 births Category:120 deaths Category:Ancient Greeks Category:Essayists Category:Roman era biographers Category:Vegetarians ja:プルタルコス

Sekhmet

] In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet (also spelt Sachmet, Sakhet, and Sakhmet), was originally the war goddess of Upper Egypt, although when the first Pharaoh of the 12th dynasty moved the capital of Egypt to Memphis, her cult centre moved as well. As Lower Egypt had been conquered by Upper Egypt, Sekhmet was seen as the more vicious of the two war goddesses, the other, Bast, being the war goddess for Lower Egypt. Consequently it was Sekhmet who was seen as the avenger of wrongs, and scarlet lady, a reference to blood. As the one with blood-lust, she was also seen as ruling over menstruation. Her name suits her function, and means (one who is) powerful, and she was also given titles such as (one) before whom evil trembles, and lady of slaughter. Sekhmet was believed to protect the pharaoh in battle, stalking the land, and destroying his enemies with arrows of fire, her body being said to take on the bright glare of the midday sun, gaining her the title lady of flame. Indeed it was said that death and destruction was balsam for her heart, and hot desert winds were believed to be this goddess's breath. In order to placate Sekhmet's wrath, her priesthood felt compelled to perform a ritual before a new statue of her each day of the year, leading to it being estimated that over seven hundred statues of Sekhmet once stood in the funerary temple of Amenhotep III, on the west bank of the Nile. It was said that her priests protected her statues from theft or vandalism by coating them with anthrax, and so Sekhmet was also seen as a bringer of disease, to be prayed to so as to cure such ills by placating her. The name "Sekhmet" literally became synonymous with doctors during the Middle Kingdom. She was envisioned as a fierce lioness, and in art, was depicted as such, or as a woman with the head of a lioness, dressed in red, the colour of blood. Sometimes the dress she wears exhibits a rosetta pattern over each nipple, an ancient leonine motif, which can be traced to observation of the shoulder-knot hairs on lions. Tame lions were kept in temples dedicated to Sekhmet at Leontopolis. To pacify Sekhmet, festivals were celebrated at the end of battle, so that there would be no more destruction. On such occasions, people danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess, and drank great quantities of wine. For a time, a myth developed around this in which Ra, the sun god (of Upper Egypt), created her from his fiery eye, to destroy mortals which conspired against him (Lower Egypt). In the myth, however, Sekhmet's blood-lust lead to her destroying almost all of humanity, so Ra tricked her into drinking blood-coloured beer, making her so drunk that she gave up slaughter and became the gentle Hathor. After Sekhmet's worship moved to Memphis, as Horus and Ra had been identified as one another, under the name Ra-Herakhty, when the two religious systems were merged, and Ra became seen as a form of Atum, known as Atum-Ra, so Sekhmet, as a form of Hathor, was seen as Atum's mother. In particular, she was seen as the mother of Nefertum, the youthful form of Atum, and so was said to have Ptah, Nefertum's father, as a husband. Nethertheless, this identification with Hathor, who was originally a separate deity, did not last, mostly because their character was so wildly differing. Later, the cult of Mut, the great mother, became significant, and gradually absorbed the identities of the patron goddesses, merging with Sekhmet, and Bast, who lost their individuality. The Hymn of Sekhmet says: :Mine is a heart of carnelian, crimson as murder on a holy day. :Mine is a heart of corneal, the gnarled roots of a dogwood and the bursting of flowers. :I am the broken wax seal on my lover's letters. :I am the phoenix, the fiery sun, consuming and resuming myself. :I will what I will. :Mine is a heart of carnelian, blood red as the crest of a phoenix. Category:Egyptian goddesses Category:Health goddesses Category:War goddesses

Kali

:This article is about the Hindu goddess Kali. For other uses of the word, see Kali (disambiguation). Kali (disambiguation)] Although her presentation in the West is usually as simply dark and violent, Kali is a goddess with a long and complex history in Hinduism. Her earliest history as a creature of indiscriminate violence and wrath still has some influence, while more complex Tantric beliefs sometimes extend her role so far as to be the Ultimate Reality and Source of Being. Finally, the comparatively recent devotional movement largely conceives of Kali as a straightforwardly benevolent mother-goddess. Kali is associated with many devis (goddesses) as well as the deva (god) Shiva. Kali is generally considered one of the consorts of Shiva. Her name seems to be a female version of the word 'kala' (Sanskrit for 'dark' or 'time'- time in this form being a euphemism for death); it also means Black Female, in contrast to her consort, Shiva, who is white. The goddesses that she is associated or identified with include Durga, Bhowani Devi, Sati, Rudrani, Parvati, Chinnamastika, Kamakshi, Uma, Menakshi, Himavati, Kumari. These names, if repeated, are believed to give special power to the worshipper.

Origin

Kali makes her 'official' debut in the Devi-Mahatmya, written around 600CE, where she is said to have emanated from the brow of the goddess Durga (slayer of demons) during one of the battles between the divine and anti-divine forces. In this context, Kali is considered the 'forceful' form of the great goddess Durga. Other goddesses who are less associated with warfare, such as Parvati, Sita and Sati, are also said to emanate Kali, or even become her, to defeat enemies. These enemies are sometimes only susceptible to female assault, making the intervention of the male consort impossible. In some cases, the Kali produced is even able to destroy a far greater enemy than her consort, as when Sita becomes Kali to defeat a thousand-headed Ravana. As her consort Rama is usually the warrior, but in this case freezes in fear, some take this to be a sign of the great potential power of women, when their Shakti is not controlled by and gifted to a male consort.

Development

Kali has become massively linked with Shiva in the later traditions. The unleashed form of Kali often becomes wild and uncontrollable, and only Shiva is able to tame her. This is both because she is often a transformed version of one of his consorts and because he is able to match her wildness. His methods vary from challenging her to the wild tandava dance and outdoing her, to appearing as a crying infant and appealing to her maternal instincts. While Shiva is said to be able to tame her, the iconography often presents her dancing on his fallen body, and there are accounts of the two of them dancing together, and driving each other to such wildness that the world comes close to unravelling. Shiva's involvement with Tantra and Kali's dark nature have led to her becoming an important Tantric figure. To the Tantric worshippers, it was essential to face her Curse, the terror of death, as willingly as they accepted Blessings from her beautiful, nurturing, maternal aspect. For them, wisdom meant learning that no coin has only one side: as death cannot exist without life, so life cannot exist without death. Kali's role sometimes increased beyond a chaos who could be confronted to bring wisdom, and she is given great metaphysical significance by some Tantric texts. The Nirvāna-tantra clearly presents her uncontrolled nature as the Ultimate Reality, claiming that the trimurti of Brahma, Visnu and Siva arise and disappear from her like bubbles from the sea. Although this is an extreme case, the Yogini-tantra, Kamakhya-tantra and the Niruttara-tantra declare her the svarupa (own-being) of the Mahadevi (the great Goddess, who is in this case seen as the combination of all devis). The final stage of development is the worshipping of Kali as the Great Mother, devoid of her usual violence or foulness. This tradition is a break from the more traditional depictions, and as a popular movement with little philosophical or literary backing it can easily be overlooked. The pioneers of this tradition are the Shakta poets such as Ramprasad (1718? - 1775?), who show an awareness of Kali's ambivalent nature. Rachel McDermott's work, however, suggests that for the common worshipper, Kali is not seen as fearful, and only those educated in old traditions see her as having a wrathful component.

Iconography

In most early representations, skulls, cemeteries, and blood are associated with her worship. She is black, naked and emaciated. Her face is azure, streaked with yellow, her glance is ferocious; her disheveled and bristly hair is usually shown splayed and spread like the tail of a peacock and sometimes braided with green serpents. She wears a long necklace (descending almost to her knees) of human skulls or intestines. She may be shown wearing a girdle of severed arms. Children's corpses as earrings (likeliest representing natural infant mortality and childhood mortality from causes such as disease), and cobras as bracelets or garlands add to her terrifying adornments. Her purple lips are often shown streaming with blood; her tusk-like teeth descend over her lower lip; and her tongue lolls out. She is often shown standing on the inert form of her consort, Shiva. When portrayed in sexual union with him, she straddles his prone body, showing her domination and breaking from traditional gender roles. She is sometimes accompanied by she-demons. In certain representations, her four arms hold weapons or the severed head of a demon, while also making the 'peace' and 'boon-giving' gestures: these symbolize both her creative and her destructive power, for in some traditions Kali personifies the ambivalence of deity, which manifests itself, according to much of Indian tradition, in the unceasing cycle of life and death, creation and destruction.

Recent Iconographical development

More recent Bengali images go against these traditons to varying degrees. Some old icons have clothes or jewelerry added to cover Kali's nudity, and newer icons often beautify her, making her appear more like an attractive young mother than a demonness or hag. Such iconography as remains is also re-interpreted: the form of Kali dancing on Shiva is explained as him lying before her when she is in a rage, so that when she steps on him she will be embarassed by the impropriety and come to her senses. Similarly, the lolling tongue, previously considered to drink the blood of her enemies, is instead stuck out in shame. Some of her biggest temples are to be found in the North-East of India, in particular in Kolkata, West Bengal: Kalighat and Dakshineshwar, and in the equally famed Kamakhya in Assam. Her poor reputation in the West came from the cult of the Thuggee, Hindus who took the goddess Kali as their deity. They robbed and murdered travellers as sacrifices to Kali and were broken up by the British. The common English word thug is derived from this.

External links

Category:Hindu goddesses Category:Destroyer goddesses ja:カーリー

Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone (Greek Περσεφόνη, Classical Greek Persephónē, Modern Greek Persefóni) was the queen of the Underworld, the Kore or young maiden, and the daughter of Demeter. Persephone ("she who destroys the light") is her name in the Ionic Greek of epic literature. In other dialects she was known under various other names: Persephassa, Persephatta, or simply Kore. The Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who use the dialectal variant Proserpina. Hence, in Roman mythology she was called Proserpina, and as a revived Roman Proserpina she became an emblematic figure of the Renaissance.

Overview

The figure of Persephone is a well-known one today. Her story has great emotional power: an innocent maiden; a mother's grief at the abduction and the return of her daughter. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons. But the Greeks knew another face of Persephone as well. She was also the terrible Queen of the dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was named simply "The Maiden". Her central myth, for all of its emotional familiarity, was also the back-story of the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to their awe-struck participants—an immortality in her world beneath the soil, feasting with the heroes beneath her dread gaze (Kerenyi 1960, 1967). heroes

The Abduction Myth

In the Olympian pantheon, Persephone is given a father: according to Hesiod's Theogony, Persephone was the daughter produced by the union of Zeus and Demeter. "And he [Zeus] came to the bed of bountiful Demeter, who bore white-armed Persephone, stolen by Hades from her mother's side". Unlike every other offspring of an Olympian pairing, however, Persephone has no stable position at Olympus. Persephone used to live far away from the other gods, a goddess within Nature before the days of planting seeds and nurturing plants. In the Olympian telling , the gods Hermes, Ares, Apollon and Hephaistos, had all wooed Persephone, but Demeter rejected all their gifts and hid her daughter away from the company of the gods. Thus, Persephone lived a peaceful life before she became the goddess of the underworld, which, according to Olympian mythographers, did not occur until Hades abducted her and brought her into the underworld. She was innocently picking flowers with some nymphs—and Athena and Artemis, the Homeric hymn says—, or Leucippe, or Oceanids— in a field in Enna when he came, bursting up through a cleft in the earth; the nymphs were changed by Demeter into the Sirens for not having interfered. Life came to a standstill as the depressed Demeter (goddess of the Earth) searched for her lost daughter. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told her what had happened. Finally, Zeus could not put up with the dying earth and forced Hades to return Persephone. But before she was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, Hades tricked her into eating six pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return six months out of each year. (A month for each seed she had eaten.) In some versions, Ascalaphus informed the other gods that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. When Demeter and her daughter were together, the Earth flourished with vegetation, but for six months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. In an alternate version, Hecate rescued Persephone. In the earliest version the dread goddess Persephone was herself Queen of the Underworld (Burkert, Kerenyi) This myth can also be interpreted as an allegory of ancient Greek marriage rituals. The Greeks felt that marriage was a sort of abduction of the bride by the groom from the bride's family, and this myth may have explained the origins of the marriage ritual. The more popular etiological explanation of the seasons may have been a later interpretation. Persephone, as Queen of Hades, only showed mercy once, because the music of Orpheus was so hauntingly sad. She allowed Orpheus to bring his wife Eurydice back to the land of the living as long as she walked behind him and he never tried to look at her face until they reached the surface. Orpheus agreed but failed, looking back at the very end to make sure his wife was following, and lost Eurydice forever. Eurydice Persephone also figures in the story of Adonis, the Syrian consort of Aphrodite. When Adonis was born, Aphrodite took him under her wing, seducing him with the help of Helene, her friend, and was entranced by his unearthly beauty. She gave him to Persephone to watch over, but Persephone was also amazed at his beauty and refused to give him back. The argument between the two goddesses was settled either by Zeus or Calliope, with Adonis spending four months with Aphrodite, four months with Persephone and four months of the years with whomever he chose. He always chose Aphrodite because Persephone was the cold, unfeeling goddess of the underworld. When Hades pursued a nymph named Mintho, Persephone turned her into a mint plant. Persephone was the object of Pirithous' affections. Pirithous and Theseus, his friend, pledged to marry daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose Helen and together they kidnapped her and decided to hold onto her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose Persephone. They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra, and travelled to the underworld, domain of Persephone and her husband, Hades. Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast; as soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. Persephone and her mother Demeter were often referred to as aspects of the same goddess, and were called "the Demeters" or simply "the goddesses." The story of Persephone's abduction was part of the initiation rites in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Modern Scholarship on Persephone

Persephone Before the Greeks?

Many modern scholars have argued that Persephone's cult was a continuation of Neolithic or Minoan goddess-worship. Among classicists, this thesis has been argued by Gunther Zuntz (Zuntz 1973) and cautiously included by Walter Burkert in his definitive Greek Religion. More daringly, the mythologist Karl Kerenyi has identified Persephone with the nameless "mistress of the labyrinth" at Knossos. On the other hand, the hypothesis of a universal cult of the Earth Mother has come under increasing criticism in recent years. For more on both sides of the controversy, see Mother Goddess.

Life-Death-Rebirth

Inspired by James Frazer, Jane Ellen Harrison and modern mythologers, some scholars have labeled Persephone a life-death-rebirth deity.

Consorts/Children

- Unknown father (Some say Zeus)
- Iacchus
- Hades
- Adonis
- Hermes

The 1911 Britannica's account of the myth

"As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. ... Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Proserpine go. But before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him for ever. So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds (according to later authors, one-half) of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth. ... As wife of Pluto, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men."

References

- Karl Kerenyi (Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, 1960, in English 1967)
- Günter Zuntz, Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia, 1973
- Walter Burkert, Greek Religion 1985
- Lewis Richard Farnell. The Cults of the Greek States, Volume 3 (1906) (Chapters on: Demeter and Kore-Persephone; Cult-Monuments of Demeter-Kore; Ideal Types of Demeter-Kore). Category:Greek goddesses Category:Life-death-rebirth goddesses Category:Fictional queens ja:ペルセポネ

Neith

n:t R25 B1

In Egyptian mythology, Neith (also known as Nit, Net and Neit) was the patron deity of Sais, in the Western Delta. Originally, Neith was a goddess of the hunt and of war, and had as her symbol, like the town of Sais itself, two crossed Arrows over a shield. It is thought that Neith may correspond to the Berber and Punic goddess Tanit (Ta-Nit). In her early form, as a goddess of war, she was said to make warriors' weapons, and guard their bodies when they died. However, her symbol also bore resemblance to a loom, and so it was that Neith additionally became goddess of weaving, and gained her name, which means weaver. As a goddess of weaving and the domestic arts, she was a protectress of women and a guardian of marriage, and so Royal woman often named themselves after Neith in her honour. As she was also goddess of war, and thus had an additional association with death, it was said that she wove the bandages and shrouds worn by the mummified dead as a gift to them, and thus she became viewed as a protector of one of the Four sons of Horus, specifically of Duamutef, the deification of the canopic jar storing the stomach, since the stomach was the part of the body that was mostly attacked in battle. It was said that she shot arrows at any evil spirits that attacked the jar. In time, her name, which could also be interpreted as meaning water, lead to her being considered as the personification of the primordial waters of creation, in the Ogdoad mythology, and thus the mother of Ra. Since she had become a water goddess, she was also viewed as the mother of Sobek, the crocodile. It was this association with water, i.e. the Nile, that lead to her sometimes being considered the wife of Chnum. As the goddess of creation, it sometimes occurred that people took her other position, as goddess of weaving, and said that she wove the world on her loom. Plutarch says her temple (of which nothing now remains) bore the inscription: I am All That Has Been, That Is, and That Will Be. No mortal has yet been able to lift the veil that covers Me. In much later times, her association with war, and death, lead to her being identified with Nephthys (and Anouke), from the Ennead, and thus considered a wife of Set. Despite this, it was said that she interceded in the war between Horus and Set, over the Egyptian throne, recommending that Horus rule. In art, Neith appears as a woman with a weavers’ shuttle atop her head, holding a bow and arrows, a woman with the head of a lioness, as a snake, or as a cow. Sometimes Neith was pictured as a woman nursing a baby crocodile, and she was titled Nurse of Crocodiles. As the personification of the primordial waters, which, in the Ogdoad theology, had no gender, she was also thought of as being androgynous. As mother of Ra, she was sometimes described as the Great Cow who gave birth to Ra. A great festival, called the Feast of Lamps, was held annually in her honor, and according to Herodotus her devotees burned a multitude of lights in the open air all night during the celebration. There is also evidence of an Osiris-like cult of a woman dying and being brought back to life that was connected with Neith. Plato's Timaeus stated that she was the Greek goddess 'Athene' by another name, although historically they do not share the same origins.

External links

- [http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/nit.htm Nit (Neith), Goddess of Weaving, War, Hunding and the Red Crown, Creator Deity, Mother of Ra] Category:Egyptian goddesses Category:Hunting goddesses Category:War goddesses

Sekhmet

Orion

Orion is a proper name used in many different ways:
- Orion the hunter, from Greek mythology
- Orion the constellation
- Orion the spiral arm in the Milky Way
- Orion Nebula also known as M42
- Orion, a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département in France
- Orion, a municipality in the province of Bataan in the Philippines
- Orion the communications satellite
- Project Orion, a proposed nuclear pulse propulsion system
- The ORION Network - The Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network in Canada
- Orion- The student newspaper of California State University, Chico
- Orion Irvine is the National Youth Issues Representative at the Canadian Labour Congress

In literature and popular culture

- Orion the comic book character, the son of Darkseid
- Orion the manga by Masamune Shirow
- Orion, an instrumental piece from the Master of Puppets album by Metallica
- Master of Orion, the computer game
- Orions, an alien race in the Star Trek fictional universe
- Orion is the name of a white and orange cat in the first Men In Black movie. Around the cat's neck is a collar with "Orion's Belt" attached to it, a small gem that contains all the power of the galaxy.
- Orion's Arm, an online science-fiction novel about a universe which has passed beyond the Technological singularity.
- Orion.78 is a song from the Dance Dance Revolution series.

As a brand name or designator

- Orion brand beer, from Japan
- Orion brand of television sets, from Japan
- The Ford Orion, an automobile model of the Ford Motor Company
- Lockheed P-3 Orion, an anti-submarine warfare and surveillance aircraft
- Orion former manufacturer of radio and television sets, from Hungary
- Orion Application Server, a J2EE server
- Orion, a fragance in the Axe deodorant line.

Companies

- Orion Bus Industries, a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler, based in Oriskany, New York
- Orion Group, from South Korea
- Orion Optics are telescope manufacturers in the UK
- Orion Pictures Corporation, a defunct movie company
- Orion Publishing Group, owned by Hachette Livre
- Orion Telecommunications, a telecommunications company based in Australia
- Orion, car audio company until bought by Directed Electronics.
- Orion Expedition Cruises, a cruise line based in Australia

Rockets

- An American sounding rocket, Orion (US-rocket)
- A sounding rocket of Argentinia, Orion (Rocket of Argentinia) ko:오리온 (동음이의)

Shiva

:This article is about the Hindu God Śiva. For other uses of the word, see Śiva (disambiguation) Śiva (disambiguation) poison that came out of the Samudra manthan.]] Shiva (Sanskrit: शिव, and written Śiva in the official IAST transliteration, pronounced as "shιvə") is a form of Ishvara or God in the later Vedic scriptures of Hinduism. Adi Sankara interprets the name Śiva to mean "One who purifies everyone by the utterance of His name" or the Pure One. That is, Śiva is unaffected by the three gunas (characteristics) of Prakrti (matter): Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. In some sects, and widely in the West, Śiva is commonly known as "the destroyer", though this title can be misleading as Shiva appears in a multitude of roles. Additionally, Śiva can also mean, "the Auspicious One." He is often depicted as the husband of Uma or Parvati. In the process of manifestation, Lord Shiva is the primeval consciousness and creates the other members of the trimurti. He is symbolized by the wisdom of the Serpent. He has many other names, for example Shankara and Mahadev.

Introduction

trimurti, India is one of the most famous temples dedicated to Lord Siva.]] Shiva is referred to as 'the good one' or the 'auspicious one'. Shiva - Rudra is considered to be the destroyer of evil and sorrow. Shiva - Shankara is the doer of good. Shiva is 'tri netra' or three eyed, and is 'neela kantha' - blue necked (having consumed poison to save the world from destruction). Shiva - Nataraja is the Divine Cosmic Dancer. Shiva - Ardhanareeswara is both man and woman. He is both static and dynamic and is both creator and destroyer. He is the oldest and the youngest, he is the eternal youth as well as the infant. He is the source of fertility in all living beings. He has gentle as well as fierce forms. Shiva is the greatest of renouncers as well as the ideal lover. He destroyes evil and protects good. He bestows prosperity on worshipers although he is austere. He is omnipresent and resides in everyone as pure consciousness. Shiva is inseparable from Shakti - Parvati the daughter of Himavaan - Haimavati. There is no Shiva without Shakti and no Shakti without Shiva, the two are one - or the absolute state of being - consciousness and bliss. The five mantras that constitute Shiva's body are Sadyojaata, Vaamadeva, Aghora, Tatpurusha and Eesaana. Eesaana is Shiva not visible to the human eye, Sadyojaata is Shiva realized in his basic reality (as in the element earth, in the sense of smell, in the power of procreation and in the mind). The Vishnudharmottara Purana of the 6th century CE assigns a face and an element to each of the above mantras. (Sadyojaata - earth, Vaamadeva - water, Aghora - fire, Tatpurusha - air and Eesaana - space). The names of the deified faces with their elements are Mahadeva (earth), Bhairava (fire), Nandi (air), Uma (water) and Sadasiva (space). In some views Śiva is the third form of God as one of the Trimurti (popularly called the "Hindu trinity"). In the Trimurti, Śiva is the destroyer, while Brahma and Vishnu are creator and preserver, respectively. However, even though he represents destruction, he is viewed as a positive force (The Destroyer of Evil), since creation follows destruction. Other views contend that Śiva produces Vishnu who produces Brahma and thus creation begins, within which the cycle of the Trimurti exists. Śiva also assumes many other roles, including the Lord of Ascetics (Mahadeva), the Lord of Boons (Rudra), and also the Universal Divinity (Mahesvara). Worshippers of Śiva are called Śaivites who consider Śiva as representing the Ultimate Reality (see Ishta-Deva for fuller discussion). Śiva is not limited to the personal characteristics as he is given in many images and can transcend all attributes. Hence, Śiva is often worshipped in an abstract manner, as God without form, in the form of linga. This view is similar in some ways to the view of God in Semitic religions such as Islam or Judaism, which hold that God has no personal characteristics. Hindus, on the other hand, believe that God can transcend all personal characteristics yet can also have personal characteristics for the grace of the embodied human devotee. Personal characteristics are a way for the devotee to focus on God. Śiva is also described as Anaadi (without beginning/birth) and Ananta (without end/death). According to the Bhagavata Purana, Lord Śiva manifested in his multiple forms from the forehead of Lord Brahma. When Lord Brahma asked his sons, the Four Kumaras, to go forth and create progeny in the universe, they refused. This angered Lord Brahma and in his anger a child appeared from his forehead, which split into two - a male part and a female part. The male half started crying inconsolable and as a result, Brahma named him Rudra. The child cried seven more times and each time Brahma gave him a separate name. The eight names thus given to the child were Rudra, Sharva, Bhava, Ugra, Bhima, Pashupati, Ishana, and Mahadeva. Each of these eight names are said to be associated with specific elements of the cosmos, namely the earth, water, fire, wind, sky, a yogi called Kshetragya, the sun, and the moon respectively. This male child became Lord Śiva, who was asked to go forth and create progeny, but when Lord Brahma observed the power, as they shared the qualities of Lord Śiva, he asked him to observe austerities instead of creating progeny. A slightly different version is told in the Shiva Purana: in the Śiva Purana, Śiva promises Brahma that an aspect of his, Rudra, will be born and this aspect is identical to Him. The tale about Lord Śiva being born and immediately splitting into two halves of male and female indicates the origin of the Ardhanarishvara - the union of substance and energy, the Being and his Shakti (force). Śiva is the supreme God of Śaivism, one of the three main branches of Hinduism today (the others being Vaishnavism and Shaktism). His abode is called Kailasa. His holy mount (Skt: Vahana) is Nandi, the Bull. His attendant is named Bhadra. Śiva is usually represented by the Śiva linga (or lingam), usually depicted as a clay mound with three horizontal stripes on it, or visualised as a flaming pillar. In anthropomorphised images, he is generally represented as immersed in deep meditation on Mount Kailash (reputed to be the same as the Mount Kailash in the south of Tibet, near Manasarovar Lake) in the Himalaya, his traditional abode.

Consorts, and the Burning of Kamadeva

Śiva's consort is Devi, God's energy or God as the Divine Mother who comes in many different forms, one of whom is Kali, the goddess of death. Parvati, a more pacific form of Devi is also popular. Śiva also married Sati, another form of Devi and daughter of Daksha, who forbade the marriage. Sati disobeyed her father. Daksha once held a Yajna (ritual sacrifice) to Vishnu, but did not invite Śiva. In disgust, Sati burned herself through yogic meditation (or, in another version, in the same fire Daksha used in his sacrifice). When Śiva's attendants reported the matter, Shiva tore off a lock of his hair and lashed it against the ground. The stalk split in two, one half transforming into the terrifying gana Virabhadra, while the other caused Mahakali to manifest on the scene. The pair immediately led Śiva's army of ganas to Daksha's yajna and destroyed it. Daksha was decapitated by Virabhadra, but was later given the head of a goat to humble him, once the rishis and Brahma had pleaded with Śiva for lenience. Sati was later reborn in the house of Himavat (Himalaya mountain-range personified) and performed great penance (Skt: Tapasya) to win over Śiva's attention. Her penance brought Kamadeva and his consort Rati to the scene, whereupon they attempted to interrupt Shiva's meditation with Kamadeva's arrow of passion. It caused Śiva to break his Samadhi, but he was so infuriated by Kamadeva's assault that he burned the deva of passion to ashes on the spot with his glare. It was only after Rati's pleading that Śiva agreed to reincarnate Kamadeva. Parvati would try again without Kamadeva's aid to win over Shiva, and this time, through her devotion and the persuasion of other rishis, yogis, and devas, he eventually accepted her.

Other Legends

Śiva gave Parashurama, an avatar of Vishnu, his axe. Śiva's great bow is called Pināka and thus he is also called Pinaki. Most depictions of Śiva show the three-pointed spear Trishula, another of his weapons, in the background. He is also known for having given the kshatriya Arjuna the divine weapon (Skt: Astra) Pashupata, with the stipulation of using it against someone of equal strength, for the weapon would otherwise lay waste to the mortal realm.

The Sons of Shiva

Śiva and Parvati are the parents of Karttikeya and Ganesha. Ganesha, the elephant-headed God of wisdom, acquired his head by offending Śiva, by refusing to allow him to enter the house while Parvati was bathing. Śiva sent his ganas to subdue Ganesha, but to no avail. As a last resort, he bade Vishnu confuse the stalwart guardian using his powers of Maya. Then, at the right moment, Śiva hurled Trishula and cut Ganesha's head from his body. Upon finding her guardian dead, Parvati was enraged and called up the many forms of Shakti to devour Shiva's ganas and wreak havoc in Swargaloka. To pacify her, Śiva brought forth an elephant's head from the forest and set it upon the boy's shoulders, reviving him. Shiva then took Ganesha as his own son and placed him in charge of his ganas. Thus, Ganesha's title is Ganapati, Lord of the Ganas. In another version, Parvati presented her child to Shani (the planet Saturn), whose gaze burned his head to ashes. Brahma bade Śiva to replace with the first head he could find, which happened to be that of an elephant. Karttikeya is a six-headed god and was conceived to kill the demon Tarakasura, who had proven invincible against other gods. Tarakasura had terrorised the devas of Swargaloka so thoroughly that they came to Śiva pleading for his help. Shiva thus assumed a form with five faces, a divine spark emanating from the third eye of each. He gave the sparks to Agni and Vayu to carry to Ganga and thereupon release. In Ganga's river, the sparks were washed downstream into a pond and found by the Karittikas, five forest maidens. The sparks transformed into children and were suckled by the Karttikas, When Śiva, Parvati, and the other celestials arrived on the scene, there was a debate of who the child belonged to. Further, Parvati, who was the most likely to care for the child, was puzzled as to how she would suckle five children. Suddenly, the child merged into a single being and Shiva blessed him with five separate names for his five sets of parents to settle the debate. The child, despite having been born from five sparks, had a sixth head, a unifying principle which brought together the five aspects of his father's power into a single being. From here, the campaign in which Karttikeya would vanquish Tarakasura and liberate Swargaloka began.

Other Forms and Legends

According to the foundation of Kaalism, Kali (pronounced Kaahli) came into existence when Śiva looked into himself. She is considered his mirror image, the divine Adi-shakti or primordial energy while he is the primordial substance. In another version, she had gone out to destroy the Asuras storming Swargaloka, but became enraged and erratic. To calm her, Śiva went and lay down on the ground in front of her path. When she stepped on him, she looked down and realized that she had just stepped on Śiva. Taken aback by his actions, she bit her tongue and calmed her fury. As Nataraja, Śiva is the Lord of the Dance, and symbolises the dance of the Universe, with all its heavenly bodies and natural laws complimenting and balancing each other. At times, he is also symbolized as doing his great dance of destruction, called Tandava, at the time of pralaya, or dissolution of the universe at the end of every Kalpa. Some Hindus, especially Smartas, believe Śiva to be one of many different forms of the universal Atman, or Brahman. Others see him as the one true God from whom all the other deities and principles are emanations. This view is usually related to the bhakti sects of Śaivism. Although he is defined as a destroyer (or rather re-creator), Śiva, along with Vishnu, is considered the most benevolent God. One of his names is Aashutosh, he who is easy to please, or, he who gives greatly in return for little. Unlike Vishnu, Śiva does not traditionally have avatars. However, several persons have been claimed as embodiments of him, such as Adi Shankara, and there are instances in many legends and teachings where Śiva manifests spontaneously to intervene in human events. Some people also consider Hanuman to be an aspect of Śiva.

Schools and Views of Śivaism

[[Image:Shiva and Uma 14th century.jpg|thumb|250px|right|This [[14th century]] statue depicts Śiva (on the left) and his wife Uma (on the right{{{

Orion

In literature and popular culture

As a brand name or designator

Companies

Rockets

- An American sounding rocket, Orion (US-rocket)
- A sounding rocket of Argentinia, Orion (Rocket of Argentinia) ko:오리온 (동음이의)

Anubis

Anubis, is the Greek name for the ancient god in Egyptian mythology whose hieroglyphic is more accurately spelt Anpu (also Anup, Anupu, Wip, Ienpw, Inepu, Yinepu, or Inpw). Prayers to Anubis have been found carved on the most ancient tombs in Egypt, indeed the Unas text (line 70) associates him with the Eye of Horus.

Lord of the dead

Eye of Horus Originally, in the Ogdoad system, he was god of the underworld, and his name is frequently thought to have reflected this, meaning something like putrefaction. He was said to have a wife, Anput, who was really just his female aspect, her name being his with an additional feminine suffix (the t), who was depicted exactly the same (though feminine). His father was originally said to be Ra, as he was the creator god, and thus his mother was said to be Hesat, Ra's wife, who later was identified as Hathor (who her identity was remarkably similar to). As lord of the underworld, Anubis was identified as the father of Kebechet, the goddess of the purification of bodily organs due to be placed in canopic jars, during mummification. Dogs and jackals often loitered at the edges of the desert, especially near the cemeteries where the dead were buried, in fact, it is thought that the Egyptians began the practice of making elaborate graves and tombs to protect the dead from desecration by jackals. In consequence, Anubis was usually thought of as a jackal, an association reinforced by certain variations of his hieroglyph, which can be translated as young dog. Thus, ancient Egyptian texts say that Anubis, like a jackal, silently walked through the shadows of life and death and lurked in dark places, watchful by day as well as by night. In art, he was usually depicted as a man with the head of a jackal and alert ears, often wearing a ribbon, and wielding a whip. On very rare occasions, Anubis was shown fully human, or slightly more frequently as fully jackal. However, Anubis was also depicted as black, rather than brown, the colour of jackals, since black was the colour that the body turned as a result of mummification. As ruler over the dead, he was given titles such as He who is set upon his mountain, in reference to his sitting atop desert cliffs to guard multiple necropolis, and Chontamenti (also spelt Khentimentiu, and Khentamenti), meaning Lord of the Westerners, in reference to Egyptian belief that the entrance to the underworld was towards the west, since that was the direction in which the sun set. As ruler, he was also said to have been victorious over the dark forces (described as nine bows), which also, naturally, lurk in the underworld, gaining him the title Jackal ruler of the bows. As king of the underworld, he was also considered to be the one who weighed the heart of the dead against the feather of Maàt (the concept of truth), gaining him the title He who counts the hearts. One of the reasons that the ancient Egyptians took such care to preserve their dead with sweet-smelling herbs was that it became believed Anubis would check each person with his keen canine nose. Only if they smelled pure would he allow them to enter the Kingdom of the Dead.

Embalmer

Maàt Following the merging of the Ennead and Ogdoad belief systems, as a result of the identification of Atum with Ra, and their compatibility, Anubis became considered a lesser god in the underworld, giving way to the more popular Osiris. Indeed, when the Legend of Osiris and Isis emerged, it was said that when Osiris had died, Anubis stood down from his position out of respect for Osiris. Since he had been more associated with beliefs about the weighing of the heart, than had Osiris, Anubis retained this aspect, and became considered more the gatekeeper of the underworld, the Guardian of the veil (of death). As such he was said to protect souls as they journeyed there, and thus be the patron of lost souls (and consequently orphans). Rather than god of death, he had become god of dying, and consequently funeral arrangements. It was as the god of dying that his identity merged with that of Wepwawet, a similar jackal-headed god, associated with funerary practice, who had been worshipped in Upper Egypt, whereas Anubis' cult had centred in Lower Egypt. As one of the most important funerary rites in Egypt involved the process of embalming, so it was that Anubis became the god of embalming, in the process gaining titles such as He who belongs to the mummy wrappings, and He who is before the divine [embalming] booth. High priests often wore the Anubis mask to perform the ceremonial deeds of embalming. It also became said, frequently in the Book of the dead, that it had been Anubis who embalmed the dead body of Osiris, with the assistance of the other main funerary deities involved - Nepthys, and Isis. Having become god of embalming, Anubis became strongly associated with the (currently) mysterious and ancient imiut fetish, present during funerary rites, and Bast, who by this time was goddess of ointment, initially became thought of as his mother. However, as lesser of the two gods of the underworld, he gradually became considered the son of Osiris, but Osiris' wife, Isis, was not considered his mother, since she too inappropriately was associated with life. Instead, his mother became considered to be Nepthys, who had become strongly associated with funerary practice, indeed had in some ways become the personification of mourning, and was said to supply bandages to the deceased. Subsequently, this apparent infidelity of Osiris was explained in myth, in which it was said that a sexually frustrated Nepthys had disguised herself as Isis in order to appeal to her husband, Set, but he did not notice her as he was gay and infertile, wheras Isis' husband Osiris did, mistaking her for his wife, which resulted in Anubis' birth. Some more homophobic versions of the myth depict Set as the father. In later times, during the Ptolemaic period, as their functions were similar, Anubis was identified as the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The centre of this cult was in uten-ha/Sa-ka/Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name simply means city of dogs. In Book xi of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, we find evidence that the worship of this god was maintained in Rome at least up to the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Anubis in modern culture

Renaissance
- Anubis is featured in the movies The Mummy 2 and The Scorpion King.
- Anubis appears as 'Jaquel', co-running a funeral parlor in Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods.
- Anubis appears in an episode of the animated TV series Gargoyles.
- Anubis appears in the TV show Stargate: SG-1 as a hostile alien.
- Anubis is the focus of a series of erotic furry comic books produced by Radio Comix.
- Anubis is worshipped by certain groups of Neopagans
- Anubis is the name of a greek publishing house (www.anubis.gr).
- Anubis is a primary character in Stephen King's made-for-TV adaptation of Lars von Trier's series Kingdom Hospital.
- The Pokémon named Lucario is visually based on the image of Anubis.
- Anubismon is a Digimon in the Digimon collectible card game based on Anubis.
- Anubis is a character in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie. In that movie he was depicted as an evil entity wanting to take over the world, and he had the Pyramid of Light, one of the Millennium Items. He is also depicted on various cards in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game.
- Anubis appears in several computer games such as War Gods, Zone of the Enders, Broken Sword 3 and Gex 3.
- Anubis is the name of a space ship that appears in the Microsoft PC game Freelancer. The Anubis is a heavy fighter type available late in the game from the Order. It is often remarked to be the cheapest heavy fighter in the game at 1,100 credits.
- Anubis is the main character of Unreal Championship 2, and is a high-ranking member of the Desert Legion. He enters the Liandri-hosted Ascension Rites to stop Selket's plan.
- Anubis, together with Bastet, was the main villain of the "Nikopol trilogy" of graphic novels by cartoonist Enki Bilal.
- A Petpet on the virtual pet website Neopets is called the Anubis, and resembles a small version of the god.
- Anubis Cruger, a.k.a. Doggie Cruger, is a dog-like blue humanoid alien, commander of Power Rangers SPD and the Shadow Ranger.
- Doggy Kruger, stuffed counterpart of the previous one in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, serves as commander and fights as Dekamaster.
- Anubis is the evil webmaster of an online browser game.
- Anubis is the name of a battlechip in the Mega Man Battle Network Series.
- In Mega Man Zero series, there is a jackal reploid boss called Anubistepp Necromancess who comes in various versions. Anubis - Processes outgoing mail GNU Anubis is an outgoing mail processor. It goes between the MUA (Mail User Agent) and the MTA (Mail Transport Agent), and can perform on the fly various sorts of processing and conversion on the outgoing mail in accord with the sender's specified rules, based on a highly configurable regular expressions system. It operates as a proxy server, independently from mail user agents.

External links

- Some information in this article was taken from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism website at [http://www.touregypt.net/ANUBIS.htm] ---- Papio anubis is the scientific name for the savannah baboon. The name is taken from Anubis because the baboon is commonly thought of as dog-headed. Category:Death gods Category:Egyptian gods Category:Mythological dogs ko:아누비스 ja:アヌビス simple:Anubis

Pawnee

The Pawnee (also Paneassa, Pari, Pariki) are a Native American tribe that historically lived along the Platte, Loup and Republican Rivers in present-day Nebraska. They refer to themselves as "Chaticks-si-Chaticks", meaning "Men of men". In the 18th century they were allied with the French and played an important role in limiting Spanish expansion onto the Great Plains defeating them decisively in a battle in 1720. In the 19th century, epidemics of smallpox and cholera wiped out most of the Pawnee, reducing the population to approximately 600 by the year 1900; as of 2005, there are approximately 2,500 Pawnee.

Social structure

Overview

Descended from Caddoan linguistic stock, the Pawnee are not typically known as Plains Indians in the context of traditional representations; their villages constructed of earthen lodges tended to be permanent. They were an agricultural people who grew corn, beans, pumpkins and squash. With the coming of the horse culture to the Great Plains they did begin to take on some of the cultural attributes of their cousins, but the buffalo culture remained secondary to the maize culture. The Pawnee Confederacy was divided into the following four bands:
- Chaui (Grand)
- Kitkehahki (Republican)
- Pitahauerat (Tappage)
- Skidi (Wolf) The Chaui are generally recognised as being the leading band although each band was autonomous and as was typical of many Indian tribes each band saw to its own although with outside pressures from the Spanish, French and Americans, as well as neighbouring tribes saw the Pawnee drawing closer together.

Lodges

Americans The Pawnee lodges tended to be oval in shape, the frame was constructed of 10-15 posts set some ten feet apart which formed the floor of the lodge. In the center were four posts representing the four directions, this framework was then covered with willow branches, grass and earth. A hole was left in the center which served as a combined chimney and skylight, the lodge itself was semi subterranean and the floor was approximately three feet below ground level. A buffalo-skin door on a hinge could be closed at night and wedged shut. There could be as many as 30-50 people living in each lodge. A village could consist of as many as 300-500 people and 10-15 households. Each lodge was divided in two (north and south), and each section had a head who oversaw the daily business, each section was further subdivided into three families. The membership of the lodge was actually quite flexible. Twice a year the tribe went on a buffalo hunt and on their return the inhabitants of the lodges would often move into another lodge, although they generally remained within the village.

Political structure

The Pawnee were a matrilineal people; ancestral descent was through the mother and a young couple would traditionally move into the bride's parents' lodge. Both women and men were active in political life, with both taking decision-making responsibilities. Within the lodge the abovementioned sections were designated for the three classes of women.
- Mature women who did most of the labor
- Young single women just learning their responsibilities
- Older women who looked after the young children Amongst the collection of lodges, the political designations for men were essentially between:
- the Medicine/Priest Clique
- the Warrior Clique
- the Hunting Clique Women tended to be responsible for decisions about resource allocation, trade, and inter-lodge social negotiations. Men were responsible for decisions which pertained to hunting, war, and spiritual/health issues. Women tended to remain within a single lodge, while men would typically move between lodges taking multiple sexual partners in serially-monogamous relationships.

Religion

The Pawnee placed great significance on Sacred Bundles, which formed the basis of many religious ceremonies maintaining the balance of nature and the relationship with the gods and spirits. The Pawnee were not however followers of the Sun Dance although they did fall victim to the Ghost Dance phenomenon of the 1890s. They equated the stars with the gods and planted their crops according to the position of the stars. Like many tribal units they sacrificed maize and other crops. There is reference to human sacrifice (the Morning Star ritual, only practiced by the Skidi) up through the mid-eighteenth century. In her book, The Lost Universe, Gene Weltfish makes note of a young Lakota captive who was tied to a tree and shot with arrows. She was thought to be the last human sacrifice performed by the Pawnee, Weltfish attributes this peculiarity to their Aztec kin to the south.

History

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visited the neighboring Wichita in 1541 where he encountered a Pawnee chief from Harahey, north of Kansas or Nebraska. Nothing much is mentioned of the Pawnee until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when successive incursions of Spanish, French and English settlers attempted to enlarge their possessions. The tribes however tended to make alliances as and when it suited them. An interesting point to note being that different Pawnee subtribes could make treaties with warring European powers without disrupting the underlying unity; the Pawnee were masters at unity within diversity. Historian Marcel Trudel has documented close to 2,000 Pawnee (in French, Panis) slaves who lived in Canada until the abolition of slavery at the end of the 18th century, making up close to half of the known slaves in French Canada. A tribal delegation visited President Jefferson and in 1806 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, Major G. C. Sibley, Major S. H. Long, amongst others began visiting the Pawnee villages. Their policy being to befriend and defraud the tribes, part of the Manifest Destiny doctrine that had plagued American society. The Pawnee ceded territory to the American government in 1818, 1825, 1833, 1848, 1857, and 1892; in 1857, they settled on a reservation along the Loup River in present-day Nance County, Nebraska. Continual raids from Lakota from the north and west and encroachment from American settlers to the south and east lead to the abandonment of their Nebraska reservation. In 1875 they moved to Indian Territory, (Oklahoma), a large territory that had served as a 'dumping ground' for tribes displaced from the east and elsewhere. Many Pawnee men joined the United States Cavalry as scouts rather than face the ignominy of reservation life and the inevitable loss of their freedom and culture. In the 20th century, Christianity supplanted the older religion. In 1780 the Pawnee are thought to have numbered around 10,000, but by the 19th century, epidemics of smallpox and cholera wiped out most of the Pawnee, reducing the population to approximately 600 by the year 1900; as of 2002, there are approximately 2,500 Pawnee.

Recent History

The Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 established the Pawnee Business Council, the Nasharo (Chiefs) Council, and a tribal constitution, bylaws, and charter. An out of court settlement in 1964 awarded the Pawnee Nation $7,316,096.55 for undervalued ceded land from the previous century. Bills such as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 have gone some way to address the mistakes of the past and help the Pawnee Nation regain some of their pride and culture. Today the Pawnee are still celebrating their culture and meet twice a year for the inter-tribal gathering with their kinsmen the Wichita Indians and the four day Pawnee Homecoming for Pawnee veterans in July. Many Pawnee return to their traditional lands to visit relatives, craft shows and take part in powwows.

External links

- [http://www.pawneenation.org/ Pawnee Nation Official Website]
- [http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/pawnee/pawneehist.htm Pawnee Indian Tribe]
- [http://www.kansasgenealogy.com/indians/pawnee_indian_tribe.htm Pawnee Indian History in Kansas]

Bibliography

- [http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/EthnoAtlas/Hmar/Cult_dir/Culture.7864 Culture summary by Robert O. Lagace]
- [http://college.hmco.com/histo

Sothis

Sothic Mythos

References

See also

Sirius

Binary system

History

Mysteries

The Dogons

Sirius in Fiction

See also

References and external links

Plutarch

Work as magistrate and ambassador

Parallel Lives

Life of Alexander

Other works

The Moralia

Quaestiones

Plutarch's influence

Quotes

See also

External links

References

Sekhmet

Kali

Origin

Development

Iconography

Recent Iconographical development

See also

External links

Persephone

Overview

The Abduction Myth

Modern Scholarship on Persephone

Persephone Before the Greeks?

Life-Death-Rebirth

Consorts/Children

The 1911 Britannica's account of the myth

See also

References

Neith

External links

Sekhmet

Orion

In literature and popular culture

As a brand name or designator

Companies

Rockets

Shiva

Introduction

Consorts, and the Burning of Kamadeva

Other Legends

The Sons of Shiva

Other Forms and Legends

Schools and Views of Śivaism

Orion

In literature and popular culture

As a brand name or designator

Companies

Rockets

Anubis

Lord of the dead

Embalmer

Anubis in modern culture

External links

Pawnee

Social structure

Overview

Lodges

Political structure

Religion

History

Recent History

See also

External links

Bibliography